


Unwitting Catalyst

by Shujinkakusama



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Confessions, F/F, Gen, Light Angst, Love Confessions, Past Pearl/Rose Quartz (Steven Universe), Wedding Planning, Weddings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-05-25 02:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14966717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shujinkakusama/pseuds/Shujinkakusama
Summary: Without anything left physically stopping her, Pearl realizes there are some things she needs to say to her longest friends--but especially Garnet. Unfortunately, Ruby and Sapphire have to get back together for Pearl to have any chance at all of confessing her feelings to her best friend. // Gonna try to get this out before the new eps drop! Pearlnet main, Rupphire also, maybe kind of Ruppearlphire if you squint.





	1. Chapter 1

The explanations were so long coming that Pearl felt gutted with everything laid out, even knowing that there was more work yet to do. It was luck--nothing more, nothing less--that Steven’s sincerity, his naïveté, his ardent insistence that Pearl could speak freely now had been enough to override Pink Diamond’s final order. He wasn’t a Diamond, and he wasn’t Rose Quartz, but he wasn’t wrong, either.

 

Pearl was free now. 

 

That didn’t mean she had total freedom, but it gave her room to try. Sapphire had left in a rage, and it had taken days to find her. Amethyst had kept Pearl behind for two nights while Steven and Ruby searched alone, and Pearl couldn’t remember crying so openly in front of the overripe quartz, even when Garnet had refused to speak to her some months back. She told her most things--not everything, and Amethyst didn’t ask, and it was something of a blessing. Pearl’s memory was sharp, because it was meant to be, but she was so caught up in her hysterics that she remembered very little of what she’d said.

 

Not that it was the only time she would have to say it. Sapphire still deserved answers, and Pearl knew that it would be better shared with Ruby present, but with Sapphire still missing after several long days, she knew Ruby needed answers for her own sake.

They both cried. Pearl hadn’t expected that Ruby would forgive her so readily, and Ruby curled close to her on the couch and admitted that it made a lot of things make more sense now. Both were acutely aware of the roles they had been made for, and when Ruby said without prompting that she was glad that everything was out in the open now, so Pearl could  _ be _ free, like she ought to have been all along, Pearl clung to her like the world was ending all over again.

 

Sapphire had every reason to be angry; Pearl had been beyond complicit in Rose’s deception, long before she had been ordered to keep the secret to herself. But when Pearl hung back while Steven and Amethyst tried to convince her to come home, Sapphire had tugged her into a hug that she couldn’t hope to escape from, and her magic was cold, but not  _ biting. _ She’d clutched Pearl’s hand, pressed her Gem into her palm until the facet left an imprint that would be too short-lived, and it wasn’t until they had warped back to the Temple that she drew away to find her partner.

 

The wedding was Steven’s idea. When Ruby and Sapphire returned from a full day alone in the Temple, still unfused, but with much to discuss between them, Pearl was quick to volunteer herself as the planner. It would only take a few days’ planning, and she desperately needed the distraction. 

 

Especially without Garnet physically present. There was so much she wanted to say to her, now that she could. Waiting felt like torture, but it wasn’t altogether undeserved, and Pearl could stomach a little more silence for her friends’ sakes. 

 

She took Sapphire to be fitted for her tuxedo, while Amethyst and Steven tried dozens of dresses on Ruby, and Sapphire brushed a gloved hand through Pearl’s pink hair while they waited for the slacks to be shortened, thanked her for all her efforts in a tone that made it clear that she wasn’t just talking about the wedding, and promised her that she would see Garnet again sooner than not.

 

“Am I that obvious?” Pearl asked without humor, twisting her hands in her lap, and Sapphire laughed anyway.

 

“Not always. Not when you’re trying to hide things,” she said gently, “But when it’s about Garnet…”

 

The alabaster Gem groaned, putting her face in her hands. “There’s more I need to tell her,” she mumbled, “I…  _ want _ to tell her. But I want to say it directly. You and Ruby deserve to know, too, of course, but I need to tell Garnet first.”

 

Through barely-parted bangs, Sapphire’s eye shone with delight. Pearl had long been committed to really and truly accepting the difference between the three of them, even before she had the firsthand practice with mixed fusion to recognize it all from experience.

 

“I know. And you two can talk on the way to Empire City,” Sapphire said, “I’m confident that you’ll have plenty of time.”

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wedding is not quite what Pearl expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M LATE I'M SORRY. TUT

Several things were wildly unexpected during the following days of wedding preparation and, of course, the wedding itself. Pearl couldn’t truly say that it was surprising that Mr. Smiley had the legal power to officiate, although she hadn’t expected the former mayor to supply a speech that hadn’t been asked for. She wasn’t even particularly startled by Andy DeMayo arriving with a cake, although the joke he made about having a tombstone at the ready sailed in one ear and out the other. 

 

Garnet hadn’t  _ existed _ in fewer days than she had fingers on both hands, but Pearl couldn’t focus for worrying. There was so much to say, so many conversations she’d revised and rescripted in the back of her mind, that she feared it would all come tumbling out. With her luck, she would ruin the wedding, somehow, even though everything seemed to work out.

 

It didn’t even occur to Pearl that they were holding the ceremony itself in Beach City--that it was, perhaps, foolish to even expect to see Garnet until afterwards, on the way to Empire City, when Ruby and Sapphire were often miles apart, discussing things over mobile devices supplied by Greg and testing the waters before diving back into the life they had been sharing for eons, without the rose-tinted veil. 

The ceremony went without much incident, save a barely-avoided disaster to do with Onion and the blowtorch for creme brulee that Amethyst knew better than to leave unattended. 

 

Pearl watched as Ruby and Sapphire exchanged vows and caught herself holding her breath as they leaned in to seal it all with a kiss--picturesque, beautiful, and romantic--

 

But they didn’t fuse. 

 

She could have sworn something inside her cracked.

 

It wasn’t as if there had been a promise about that. Nowhere in their vows had there been anything about explicitly living out the rest of forever  _ as _ Garnet, despite several practice speeches Steven had suggested, and Pearl knew better than to expect that of them. She knew perfectly well the difference between loving someone right in front of her and sharing the same existence; it wasn’t unreasonable at all that Ruby and Sapphire might want some more time like this, to be able to reach across a table and clasp hands, to meet lovestricken gazes that reflected every ion of that love right back. 

 

It just… hurt, in a way, and Pearl didn’t know how to explain it or even if she should. She simply wanted Garnet--whole and tangible and real, even if she didn’t look back at her the way Ruby looked at Sapphire. She needed to see her, to know how she could atone for her years of deception.

 

And wasn’t that inappropriate for a wedding?

 

Feeling profoundly selfish about it all, she tried to excuse herself while Steven’s uncle--much more pleasant after several glasses of wine--made a rambling speech that was at least more heartfelt than Dewey’s had been. She neatly avoided tripping over her own feet on her way downhill, ducking behind Greg’s van as if that were an effective hiding place.

 

She knew better. But knowing better didn’t help, not when she was so ready to boil over that she covered her mouth to stifle even the smallest noise as tears poured down her cheeks. 

 

It was foolish to cry, but crying came easily. There was no end to the well she had dug for herself, and Pearl sorely wished that she  _ could _ simply cry it out and return to the festivities as if nothing had ever gone catastrophically wrong in her long life, as if she hadn’t been grasping at someone else’s coattails to stay upright for as long as she could remember.

 

The telltale jingle of Greg’s keys jolted her away from her thoughts, and she looked up so sharply that her vision blurred. The part of her mind still caught up in a long finished war panicked briefly, because she hadn’t heard anyone coming, and she was already too late to summon her spear—

 

But to her immense relief, Garnet was there, in a delightful amalgam of the wedding clothes her components had worn, still with flowers in her hair. The sequins and glitter had survived her reforming, and with the summer sun barely sinking below the horizon line, she looked more radiant than Pearl had seen in centuries.

 

“Don’t cry, Pearl,” Garnet said warmly, “You’re not going to be able to drive if you’re upset.” She paused, passing the keys to the alabaster Gem, who knew her hands were shaking terribly as she took them but couldn’t find it in her heart to worry about that. “Although everyone else is also crying. You missed Amethyst and Peridot getting weepy.”

 

“It’s common to cry at weddings.” Pearl knew it applied to humans, knew that Gems had no reason to cry, knew the wedding  _ itself _ had nothing to do with the tears she couldn’t stop. She grasped Garnet’s hand around the carabiner, staring wide-eyed into her visor. “I--are you ready? To go to Empire City, that is?”

 

“I’m ready for the honeymoon,” Garnet’s voice was smooth, and Pearl felt her heart pounding so hard in her ears that she barely heard what Garnet said next; “With you.”


End file.
